ANNOUNCER: Last time on "I Heart Pickleball" we met Marshall from the Los Angeles area.
This episode we go across the country to the land of lighthouses and lobster
to learn how Rocky Clark's investment in pickleball has paid dividends in the
greater Portland, Maine area. ♪♪ upbeat music ♪♪
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»ROCKY: My day job is I'm an investment advisor for Clark and Stewart.
I've enjoyed the investment business because I'm always working with people.
♪♪ inspiring music ♪♪ »ROCKY: And we've lived here for 25
years. And we would see our neighbors
and wave to them and have a little chit chat. But we never really got to know them.
»ANNE: We've been here for 25 years, which we have. And we were the young kids on the block.
And now we're the old folks on the block. And many of the houses have turned over
to younger people. »ROCKY: When I played tennis, I played
competitively in high school and college. And in the 10th grade we met each other on the
tennis courts. We visited The Villages because I had a few clients
at The Villages. And they took us over to the
pickleball courts and I had never seen anything like it before.
I bounced the ball. It didn't come up very high. And I thought,
"Wow. Finally a sport for a short guy."
»ANNE: We traveled for three more weeks and we never saw it again.
We never talked about it again. And when we got home, the doorbell rang
and it was UPS delivering a net.
»ROCKY: When we got the net we set it out for ourselves out on the street.
And I hit a little bit. Some of the kids showed up.
Some of the parents came out. »AARON: I think literally Rocky just
came over with a net. He and I live next to each other.
And there's an area right on the side of my house that
is basically a perfect sort of location for a pickleball court. And I think he
literally took some kids' sidewalk chalk and he chalked out a court
in pretty quick fashion. And set up the net. And we just began,
you know, knocking the ball back and forth.
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»HOPE: We sort of saw him playing and I was like, "Hey, what is that?"
»BOB: And, you know, Rocky really is - he's a good
teacher and he really encouraged the young kids to sort of pick it up.
»HOPE: Me and my friend, Meg our neighbor, we were all like we wanted to play
together and Rocky said he would give each of us a dollar
if we got to five volleys. And on the last try we got to
five and it was really fun.
»BOB: Probably it was just one of those things where we started playing, like one or two people,
and then I think people sort of tried it and then
really realized how easy you can pick it up. »HOPE: Yeah »BOB: And you can see people
that might be looking out the windows and sort of saying, "Hey, I want to try that."
Or we've had some other folks, you know, stop, who have been walking or riding their bike, and
say, "Oh! I want to..." And asking more questions about it.
♪♪ energetic music ♪♪ »ROCKY: We played during the summer.
And then it got to be September. And I
thought, "Gee, what are we going to do when it gets colder?"
I called Portland Rec. And they said, "You know, we're going to, we'd like to do
pickleball. Would you do an adult ed program?"
And I said, "Well, I've only played it for a couple months but
I'd be happy to help out." I had forty people show up the very first night.
And I had about twelve paddles.
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»AARON: My wife had come across a community services bulletin
for a clinic that our regional ambassador, Rocky Clark, was putting on in the city
of Portland. So that's how we found out about it. It was a free clinic. It lasted
for ten weeks. Like I said before, within a few minutes I knew.
It was instantaneous. I was in love with the sport. Rocky was the one
to pretty much bring it mainstream here to the greater Portland area and it's just exploded
ever since in the last two years.
So a little over two years ago when Rocky brought the sport to the Portland
area, there was only a handfull of people primarily in his own neighborhood playing the game.
Today locally in the greater Portland area there's probably over 200 people that play locally.
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»ROCKY: The age group here is 35 to 45
who we are playing against. And it makes me feel younger
when I'm playing against the 35-40 year-olds.
I just feel like I'm one of the guys. »HOPE: It brings our community,
our neighborhood, together a lot more. I like pickleball.
»BOB: Pickleball is definitely one of the things that has brought our little "hood"
even tighter together. »ROCKY: And over the last couple years
we've become a lot closer. And we'll come home from work and
somebody will say, "Let's go play some pickleball."
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♪♪ upbeat music ♪♪ »ANNOUNCER: Just like with Rocky, pickleball can bring
us together to celebrate community, learn new things and have fun.
If you know someone we should feature on a future episode we would love to hear from you.
All you have to do is send us an email and tell us your idea.
This episode of "I Heart Pickleball" has been brought to you by Hyland's Leg Cramps.
America's number one over-the-counter leg cramp medicine. For more information
go to Hylands.com. ♪♪ upbeat music ♪♪
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